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Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
The High Costs of Ethanol
Editorial, New York Times
Backed by the White House, corn-state governors and solid blocks on both sides of Congress’s partisan divide, the politics of biofuels could hardly look sunnier. The economics of the American drive to increase ethanol in the energy supply are more discouraging.
American corn-based ethanol is expensive. And while it can help cut oil imports and provide modest reductions in greenhouse gases compared to conventional gasoline, corn ethanol also carries considerable risks. Even now as Europe and China join the United States in ramping up production, world food prices are rising, threatening misery for the poorest countries.
…The United States will not meet the dual challenges of reducing global warming and its dependence on foreign suppliers of energy until it manages to reduce energy consumption. That should be its main goal.
There is nothing wrong with developing alternative fuels, and there is high hope among environmentalists and even venture capitalists that more advanced biofuels – like cellulosic ethanol – can eventually play a constructive role in reducing oil dependency and greenhouse gases. What’s wrong is letting politics – the kind that leads to unnecessary subsidies, the invasion of natural landscapes best left alone and soaring food prices that hurt the poor – rather than sound science and sound economics drive America’s energy policy.
(19 September 2007)
The Myths of Biofuels
David Fridley, Sutro Tower Video via San Francisco Peak Oil
“The Myths of Biofuels” is a video production by “Sutro Tower Video” of a presentation made by David Fridley (of Lawrence Berkeley Labs, and San Francisco Oil Awareness) given to the public by Post Carbon Santa Clara Valley on June 7, 2007. Mr. Fridley has been concerned about the potential effects of petroleum depletion (peak oil) for a number of years and has done extensive work in this area. This presentation concerning biofuels has been given to numerous interested groups. His bio at LBL is available here.
“The Myths of Biofuels” video is being made available in DVD format for the cost of materials and postage. The entire movie is (will be) available as well at the Internet Archive, and in the maximum 10 minute chunks on YouTube. The main advantage of the DVD is clearer video, and some additional material including the complete set of slides, originally in PowerPoint, reformatted for better video use. These slides appear during the course of the video as well, but not all the points of information are available through that medium.
- Large-scale biofuel production is sustainable
- Biofuels are environmentally friendly and reduce CO2 emissions
- Biofuels will help us achieve “energy independence”
- Biofuels will help the farmers
- “Second-generation” biofuels (cellulosic ethanol etc.) will save us
- Biofuels will let us continue our current way of life
(September 2007)
My Firefox browser occasionally crashes when traversing pages on the website. -BA
UPDATE (Sept 20): Dennis Brumm points out that you can get the video at: www.sfbayoil.org/sfoa/myths/acquire.html
The High Costs of Biofuels
Kevin Bullis, Technology Review (MIT)
A new report warns of the dangers of relying on biofuels to reduce carbon emissions and oil consumption.
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Although biofuels continue to have strong political support, they may not be a smart way to address global warming or wean countries off of oil. A new report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a respected international group with 30 member countries, including the United States, warns that increased use of biofuels will cause high food prices, won’t do much to offset petroleum consumption, and is an extremely expensive way to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions.
The idea that as farmers grow more crops destined to become fuel, rather than food, food prices will increase, isn’t new. The report adds that biofuels aren’t worth the cost. For various reasons, biofuels will only account for 13 percent of liquid fuels by 2050, doing little to offset petroleum consumption. What’s more, there are cheaper ways to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions. To achieve one ton of carbon-dioxide reductions costs more than $500 in subsidies in the Unites States. In contrast, a businessperson wishing to offset carbon emissions from airline flights can do so for less than $15 a ton. (Such offsets use efficiency measures, reforestation, and various renewable sources of energy to reduce carbon emissions.)
What, then, should be done about carbon-dioxide emissions from vehicles? Private offset programs will probably only take us so far. More-efficient gasoline and diesel cars, as well as electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, can help. (See “Electric Vehicles 2.0.”) Biofuels can still play a role, but government investment should focus on research on second-generation biofuels (for example, ethanol from grass and agricultural waste), since these could have a far greater impact on carbon emissions than, say, the ethanol from corn grain produced today. Ultimately, instead of mandating the use of biofuels–or any particular technology, for that matter–the government should instead put a price on carbon-dioxide emissions, and let the market sort out the best strategy.
(13 September 2007)
A Life Cycle Assessment of Energy Products: Environmental Impact Assessment of Biofuels
Swiss Federal Institute for Materials Science and Technology, Technology and Society Lab via The Oil Drum
The authors of this study are: Rainer Zah, Empa; Heinz Böni, Empa; Marcel Gauch, Empa; Roland Hischier, Empa; Martin Lehmann, Empa; Patrick Wäger, Empa
Empa, Swiss Federal Institute for Materials Science and Technology, Technology and Society Lab, Lerchenfeldstrasse 5, CH-9014 St. Gallen, Switzerland, www.empa.ch/tsl
Executive Summary
In connection with the worsening scarcity of fossil fuels and climate change the idea of using renewable energy is attracting interest both in the Swiss public eye and in industry. Fuels made from biomass – so-called biofuels – are currently the most important form of renewable energy in road transportation and could at least over the short to medium term take on a role in reducing greenhouse gases and our dependency on fossil fuels.
In Switzerland therefore important political decisions have to be made against a background of giving a tax break for renewable fuels as opposed to diesel and petrol.
…Conclusion
The present study shows that with most biofuels a trade-off exists between minimizing GHG emission and a positive environmental effect. It is true that reductions in GHG emissions of more than 30% can be obtained with many biofuels; however the most of the production paths display higher impacts than petrol in various other environmental indicators. The transport of foreign biofuels into Switzerland is of only secondary importance. Instead, the manner in which the biofuel is produced is much more important.
The central finding of this study is that most of the environmental impacts of biofuels are caused by agricultural cultivation. In the case of tropical agriculture this is primarily the clear-cutting of rainforests, which sets great quantities of CO2 free, causes air pollution and has severe impacts on biodiversity. Concrete certification guidelines for biofuels that counteract these problems, for instance, like the guidelines of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) are urgently needed. In the moderate latitudes it is partially the low crop yields, partially the intensive fertilizer use and mechanized tilling that cause the unfavorable environmental impacts. Then one should search for an optimal ratio of energetic yield and low environmental impact through variety and crop rotation. A favorable environmental profile could also be achieved with the energetic utilization of agricultural co-products such as molasses or sorghum straw.
It is the energetic utilization of waste materials and residues that shows the lowest environmental impacts in this study because firstly the high impacts from the supply of raw materials are avoided, and secondly the environmental emissions can be reduced that otherwise would come from waste treatment such as waste water degradation with whey or the methane emissions that result from fertilizing with unfermented liquid manure. One critical factor is the high methane emission that at times comes from the production and processing of biogas. In this area as well, the overall LCA could be much improved by taking appropriate measures. On the one hand, these are already being done with new plants, whereas on the other hand, research work needs to be devoted to the separation of CO2.
The energetic utilization of wood also brings good results because the environmental impacts of supply of the raw material are very low. One possible technology for the future is the gasification of wood, if ever GHG-active methane emissions can be minimized through closed processing. However even if such processes are to be regarded as future perspectives, an evaluation of their future significance must still be left open due to the limited availability of the raw material and the many competing alternative forms of utilization.
The results of this study show on the whole that promoting biofuels, for instance, through a tax break, must be done in a differentiated way. Not all biofuels are per se suitable to reduce environmental impact as compared to fossil fuels. Of all the production paths tested, at present it is primarily the utilization of biogenic waste material and wood and the utilization of grass for ethanol production that bring a reduction in environmental impact as versus the fossil reference. Nonetheless the environmental impact of biofuels – unlike that of fossil fuels – can be reduced a lot by appropriate measures. Because of this optimization potential, one may expect that in future it will be possible to achieve better results for a number of production paths. In addition to this, innovative processes such as Biomass-To-Liquid (BTL) will become more important, although it has not been possible to include them in this study.
The potential of domestic bioenergy is limited today – and will remain so in future. If energy plants were cultivated in Switzerland on a large scale, it would have a negative influence on the food self-sufficiency of the country, or would cause added environmental impact by requiring the intensification of food production. Therefore our energy problems will not be solved by biofuels alone. Only if the biomass is transformed into energy efficiently and in an environmentally friendly way, while consumption is reduced and energy efficiency increased, could these alternative energy carriers play a role in our future energy supply that should not be neglected in conjunction with other renewable energy forms.
(18 September 2007)
